5 NYC Bars With Great Food

New York City makes it easy to grab a meal before you go out boozing, but sometimes you just want to skip the whole “restaurant” part and head to a bar that can sort you out when you start to feel peckish. You could submit yourself to bog-standard buffalo wings and soggy mozzarella sticks, but in this town, you can do much better.

May we suggest a craft-beer hideaway where you can get a grilled cheese stuffed with pork belly, a fried egg, and homemade kimchi? Or, a whiskey-driven Williamsburg hangout that serves a mean chicken-liver sandwich and reasonably priced oysters to boot? No matter what your budget and style is, one of these bars will satisfy your desire for solid drinks and top-notch grub.

Here are our five favorite NYC bars to hit up when we want food that’s as good as the drinks.

Post Office

Address and phone: 188 Havemeyer, Williamsburg, Brooklyn (718-963-2574)
Website:postofficebk.comGood for: Sandwiches and brown spirits
This whiskey-driven Williamsburg bar takes its name from Charles Bukowski's debut novel, but fortunately it doesn't take any cues from the drunk-lit master infamously nutritionless eating habits. Instead, chef Sam Glinn (Brooklyn Star, Momofuku) turns out the best version of New Brooklyn-style eating—oysters, bacon-laced grilled cheeses, deviled eggs—at prices that don't make you want to pack up and move to Philly. Keep your eye on the specials board, but if you've only got room for one thing, make it the truly spectacular chicken-liver sandwich, which comes in a chewy baguette with crunchy bacon, shallots, pickles, and frisee tossed with green-apple vinaigrette. You'll need it to keep you moored for a trip deep into the bourbon list.
Order this: Chicken-liver sandwich, grilled cheese with bacon, deviled eggs, oysters

Commodore

Address and phone: 366 Metropolitan Ave, Williamsburg, Brooklyn (718-218-7632)
Good for: Southern-inspired grub and retro frozen cocktails
When you enter this dive bar, you will notice three things: a bartender slinging frozen tiki drinks, Top Gun (or another throwback flick) playing on the telly, and people tucking into plates of fried chicken and biscuits. Follow suit and order a piña colada with an Amaretto float, a frozen mojito, or any other retro cocktail, then get to grubbing. The kitchen offers Southern-inspired dishes including fried chicken, biscuits, hot catfish sandwiches, and black-eyed peas. The fried chicken plate features three juicy, crisp-skinned thighs, served alongside fresh biscuits, honey butter, and hot sauce. Essentially, this dark and dingy dive is a heavenly spot to get tipsy on alcoholic slushies, then gorge on elevated fried food.
Order this: Fried chicken plate, hot fish sandwich, kale Caesar salad, cheeseburger, biscuits with honey butter

Nights + Weekends

Address and phone: 1 Bedford Ave, Greenpoint, Brooklyn (718-383-5349)
Website:nightsandweekendsny.comGood for: Escapist boozing and vaguely tropical snacks
When a popular restaurant like Five Leaves moves into the bar scene, you can bet they're going to bring some good food with them. The team pulled this move off impressively at Nights + Weekends, where the island-style vibe is matched by a menu that smartly refracts bar-food classics—wings, tacos, popcorn shrimp—through the lens of Latin America and the Caribbean. That means those shrimp are battered tempura-style and kicked up with orange-chili aioli and thinly sliced serranos, and the spicy wings come with scallions and watermelon instead of ranch sauce and celery. At $10 each, the cocktails are also way better than they need to be, especially the Mi Corazon—a twist on a piña colada that balances spicy Fresno peppers with coconut puree, cachaca, and lime juice.
Order this: Crispy rock shrimp, spicy chicken wings, fish tacos with mango-habanero salsa

Earl's Beer & Cheese

Address and phone: 1259 Park Ave (212-289-1581)
Website:earlsny.comGood for: Craft beer and wacky bar snacks in the no-man's-land between Spanish Harlem and the UES
This craft-beer hideaway in the no-man's-land between Spanish Harlem and the Upper East Side serves up ridiculously awesome bar snacks. Corey Cova—who now runs the kitchen at ABV and his own doughnut shop next to Earl's, Dough Loco—is the comfort-food savant behind untouchable snacks like the NY State Cheddar, a grilled cheese featuring braised pork belly, a fried egg, and house-made kimchi. The high-low genius also devised an Eggo waffle topped with coffee-cured bacon, maple syrup, cheddar, and grilled foie gras. Have we mentioned the chef serves a pulled pork "taco," and swaps the tortilla with a fried scallion pancake? Yeah, he's an evil genius.
Order this: NY State Cheddar grilled cheese, Eggo waffle with foie gras, Earl's scallion pancake taco, beer cheese

Casa Mezcal

Address and phone: 86 Orchard St (212-777-2600)
Website:casamezcalny.comGood for: Mezcal cocktails and solid Oaxacan fare
Casa Mezcal offers three floors of Oaxacan entertainment: live bands play downstairs, the second floor is available for private parties, and the ground floor is a colorful bar that offers solid Mexican fare along with one of the city's most well-stocked mezcal and tequila bars. You should pair your chili-infused margarita with chapulqueso (stringy melted cheese with grasshoppers, tomato, and basil), or choriqueso (that same addictive cheese, this time laced with homemade chorizo). The tacos de cazuela—tender stewed meats and vegetables served on a tortilla—offer a change of pace from the Puebla- and West Coast-style tacos found around town. You can't go wrong with the tinga de res tacos, filled with beef braised slowly in a tomato-chipotle sauce then shredded.
Order this: Tacos de cazuela, tinga de res tacos, chapulqueso, choriqueso, guacamole and chips

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